Stephanie Burt’s poem We are Mermaids is the perfect reading to close off the semester. We have been studying our relationship with the environment throughout the mythology of the mermaid but this poem proposes the idea that our very nature is that of mermaids and this provides a thought provoking exploration of how we can imagine a different relationship with the natural world that is in harmony with our nature and against the capitalist model that has been taught to us.

Within the first stanza Burt establishes that our very tears, often a reflection of human emotion, are composed of the same substance as that of the ocean. Thus we are not beings separate and superior to the natural world but rather an extension of it. If mermaids are the bridge between the human and the natural world then it must follow that we are also mermaids. Her second stanza assures us that life has existed long before the presence of humanity and life was simply a matter of survival, in other words “to get through the day”. Within her third stanza she claims that there is stability to be found in this simple way of life. To try to depend on the machine of fortune is much less certain and provokes doubt. Given that we are mermaids we have the gift of choice; to try to fit into the life modeled to us by society or we can choose the stability of a life of simplicity. Her fourth stanza shows us that we would be wrong to think a simple life dull or meaningless. She shows us this by describing different organisms and how they thrive when following their nature, “The thermophiles…whose sulfur would kill a human being. They love it here”. Jumping onto the sixth stanza it made me think of our discussion in class about the modern world’s demand for originality to be seen as someone of importance. Such a thing does not exist in the natural world and, if the mermaid can live in and out of water, then we, we being mermaids, can live with or without the need of originality or usefulness. The first line of the seventh stanza reads, ” You can spend your life benthic of brackish.” Benthic means in the deep ocean whilst brackish water can be found within estuaries which are a threshold between river and open sea. So too can we as mermaids live within this threshold without sacrificing our role in the natural world.

This is a beautiful piece that I will be taking and perfectly encapsulates one of the most important things that this course has taught me.